Recognizing Nutritional Doublethink

Nutritional doublethink is the simultaneous acceptance of two contradictory beliefs about a food. Nutritional doublethink is the ability to believe a food is unhealthy, while at the same time believing the food is healthy.  The term nutritional doublethink is derived from George Orwell’s book, 1984, best known for the omnipresent, tyrannical party leader, Big Brother. In 1984, the ruling party encouraged doublethink, defined as the ability to simultaneously hold two contradictory thoughts in one's head without recognizing the contradiction. We can apply the concept of doublethink to nutrition.

Manufacturers use food labeling laws to make unhealthy products look healthy, to make unnatural products appear natural and to make processed food appear whole. For example, Organic Fruit Snacks have “natural strawberry, cherry and raspberry flavors” listed immediately under the product name. Organic and fruit imply naturally occurring. The common thought process is, if it’s natural and contains fruit, then it most certainly must be healthy.

The package displays a picture of what looks like colorful gummy bunny snack foods. Inherently we know that gummy snacks are not foods that promote health. We know that gummy snacks do not occur in nature. It’s clear that these snacks are “fruit flavored” and not “whole” fruit. We know this product is not natural, we know this product is processed and we know candy is not healthy. Yet, we accept it as natural, we accept it as whole and we it accept as a healthy snack. By accepting this product as both unhealthy and healthy, as unnatural and natural, as processed and whole, we’ve simultaneously accepted two contradictory beliefs about a single food. This food product has created nutritional doublethink.

Bunny Fruit (TM) Snacks ingredient list:

Organic tapioca syrup, organic pear juice from concentrate, organic cane sugar, organic tapioca syrup solids, citrus pectin, citric acid, sodium citrate, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), natural flavors, organic sunflower oil, organic carnauba wax, colors (black carrot, blackcurrant extracts).

Translated ingredient list:

Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, fiber additive, food additive, food additive, vitamin C, natural flavors created in a lab, omega-6 fatty acids, food additive, color additive.

Sugar intake is associated with tooth decay, fatty liver, insulin resistance, inflammation, obesity, food addiction, heart disease and cancer (1-5). Although this product boasts 100% of the daily value of vitamin C, the vitamin C is not squeezed from an orange. Most vitamins are now made in China, with China being one of the largest suppliers of vitamin C in the world (6). Fortifying Organic Fruit Snacks with Vitamin C is violating the Jelly Bean Rule. The FDA’s Jelly Bean Rule states,

“…random fortification of foods could … result in deceptive or misleading claims for certain foods. The Food and Drug Administration does not encourage indiscriminate addition of nutrients to foods, nor does it consider it appropriate to fortify … snack foods such as candies (7).“

Although a slightly better choice than it's conventional counterpart with artificial colors such as Red #40 or Yellow #5, Organic Fruit Snacks are more like candy than fruit.

Avoid nutritional doublethink by reading labels and identifying sugar and food additives in ingredient lists. Don’t be fooled by health claims, the word natural or assume that organic means healthy.

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References

1. Lustig R. Fat Chance. Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease. New York, New York: Hudson Street Press; January 2013. 
2. Jiang Y et al. A Sucrose-Enriched Diet Promotes Tumorigenesis in Mammary Gland in Part through the 12-Lipoxygenase Pathway. Cancer Research. 2016 Jan 1;76(1):24-9. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-3432.
3. Basaranoglu M,Basaranoglu G, Bugianesi E.  Carbohydrate intake and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: fructose as a weapon of mass destruction. Hepatobiliary Surg Nutr. 2015 Apr; 4(2): 109–116.
4. Yang Q, et al. Added Sugar Intake and Cardiovascular Diseases Mortality Among US Adults. JAMA Intern Med. 2014;174(4):516-524.
5. Tyron MS et al. Excessive Sugar Consumption May Be a Difficult Habit to Break: A View From the Brain and Body. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 2015 100:6, 2239-2247.
6. Welcome to Nepharmnutri: Nutrition. About Us. Northeast Pharmaceuticals. http://www.nepharm.com/nepharmnutri/&columnsId=51&FrontColumns_navigation01-nepharmnutrFirstColumnId=51&comp_stats=comp-FrontColumns_navigation01-nepharmnutr.html. Last accessed April 11, 2016.
7. Title 21 - Food and Drugs. Chapter 1 - Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. Subchapter B - Food for Human Consumption. Part 104- Nutritional Quality Guidelines for Foods. Subpart B- Fortification Policy. Title 21 - Food and Drugs. Code of Federal Regulations. US Government Publications. 04-01-2004. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2004-title21-vol2/xml/CFR-2004-title21-vol2-sec104-20.xml. Last accessed April 11, 2016.
   
8. Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks picture taken by Christine Dobrowolski for product review purposes.